Jazz Brunch

Years ago, when I spent the summer after my junior year at UCLA interning here in DC, my sister came out to visit me. One evening, for dinner, we wanted to try something new, so we metroed (...what? it's a word.) down to the SW Waterfront station in an effort to find a crab shack or some other seafood joint. I had heard it was a fun area but hadn't yet tried it out.

We exited the station and took the escalator up to street level, and looked around. Nary a restaurant in sight. I had envisioned the station right in the midst of some sort of eatery-laden neighborhood, but it wasn't -- and I didn't know how far we were. We walked a block or two and then turned back, thinking we had gotten the wrong station.

We hadn't. As I discovered years later when I moved here, the restaurants are maybe three blocks away. Oops.

A blessing in disguise, however, as when we got back to NW we were starving, and ducked into a restaurant I hadn't heard of. It was Georgia Brown's. After that it became a favorite.

Last Chanukah, my sis gave me a giftcard to Georgia Brown's, and last weekend Adam and I tried their jazz brunch for the first time. We ate to the sounds of a jazz trio, and I went home with Sittin' On the Dock of the Bay stuck in my head. The meal is three courses -- first, a lavish Southern buffet; second, an entree (uh, I KNOW); third, a mini-desserts buffet. They wrap up the entree to-go, so basically they're serving you dinner as well. This is because after a buffet complete with biscuit-battered french toast with pecan syrup, bacon, sausage, creamy stone-milled grits, red potato homefries, an omelet bar, a number of salads, biscuits with sausage gravy, and three different sliced meats (glazed ham, roast beef, and roasted turkey)... well, you pretty much couldn't stuff one more bite in. Well, okay, one more bite -- of mini red velvet cupcakes, peach cobbler, lemon cheesecake squares, pecan pie, coffee cake, and a ridiculous chocolate fountain with a variety of dippers.

Nope, not excessive at all...